Blizzard announces StarCraft II mods beta

Left 2 Die, StarJeweled and Aiur Chef - the three official StarCraft II mods revealed at Blizzcon last year - are now available for beta testing, developer Blizzard has announced.

Left 2 Die is a cooperative take on StarCraft II's Outbreak mission which sees you trying to fend off wave after wave of undead Terrans.

StarJeweled is a riff on PopCap's puzzle classic Bejeweled that sees you launching attacks against your opponent by matching similarly coloured gems.

Finally, Aiur Chef – a pun on the Japanese extreme cooking show Iron Chef – sees you scouring the game map for ingredients to complete various recipes.

"While these custom games are still under development and we don't yet have a release date to share," Blizzard explained in a post on Battle.net, "we wanted to give everyone the opportunity to test them out and give feedback before they're officially released."

To check them out in their current state, go to the Multiplayer tab in StarCraft II and look for the custom games window.